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"An extract, once created, remains potent for 1 day before becoming inert, so an alchemist must re-prepare his extracts every day."
A wizard's prepared spells don't vanish from his head after 24 hours, and neither do the Cleric's, Druid's or the Witch's. Why not let the Alchemist keep their extracts for as long as they want?
I can see this being a problem with the 'infusion' discovery, but an easy way to fix this is to add something like this to the end of the infusion discovery: An extract becomes inert 24 hours after it leaves the alchemist’s possession.
While its true that a wizard's memory doesn't reset each day its also true that the wizard, no matter how many spells he recalls from yesterday, has a definite finite amount of spells in his memory. This number varies by level and intelligence.
What I think they were trying to do was create a similar limitation on the Alchemist. They can only have so many "memorized" (created) at one time.
There is no elegant, non-cheesy way of doing it though.
Without this rule an Alchemist who had a day off coudl craft a day of his stuff and then use it the next day- in addition to that day's worth of stuff. A week off would give him 7 times as many 'spells' to cast.. at least until he ran out. Some balance needed to be made.
Its not without its basis in reality though.. Without the contraptions of modern preservation, many many things are really only good the day you cook/make them with many not even lasting the day. We fix that with things such as refrigeration and preservatives but i can understand that something you craft in the field in a hurry may not last all that long.
-S
Give all the alchemist's creations a weight greater than "negligible." Make his elixirs weigh a couple of pounds each, and see how quickly he becomes encumbered. Have an ogre hit him with a greatclub and see if all his hoarded vials don't explode in a chain-reaction of chemical bliss.
In short, don't make the alchemist play like a wizard with potions that aren't potions. Make him really, truly different. We all intuitively know he's cut from a whole nother cloth; the class write-up ought to read that way, then.
"An extract, once created, remains potent for 1 day before becoming inert, so an alchemist must re-prepare his extracts every day."A wizard's prepared spells don't vanish from his head after 24 hours, and neither do the Cleric's, Druid's or the Witch's. Why not let the Alchemist keep their extracts for as long as they want?
I can see this being a problem with the 'infusion' discovery, but an easy way to fix this is to add something like this to the end of the infusion discovery: An extract becomes inert 24 hours after it leaves the alchemist’s possession.
Just say the 'old' one is the one he prepped for the next day and move on. If he wants to keep it "active" just pay the formulae slot and let it go, it doesn't affect game play other than slowing things down. If he doesn't want it to remain active then it goes inert and he gets the slot back.
Honestly I see this as more fluff than anything else.
Give all the alchemist's creations a weight greater than "negligible." Make his elixirs weigh a couple of pounds each, and see how quickly he becomes encumbered. Have an ogre hit him with a greatclub and see if all his hoarded vials don't explode in a chain-reaction of chemical bliss.
In short, don't make the alchemist play like a wizard with potions that aren't potions. Make him really, truly different. We all intuitively know he's cut from a whole nother cloth; the class write-up ought to read that way, then.
Sure and while we are at it we'll make telepathy have a chance of setting off all the spells in the wizard's head! OOOH I know, when a fighter takes a hit, if it does more than 10 points of damage it should totally take his arm off!
Sure and while we are at it we'll make telepathy have a chance of setting off all the spells in the wizard's head! OOOH I know, when a fighter takes a hit, if it does more than 10 points of damage it should totally take his arm off!
Of course! And then we'll make the rogue accidentally set of the trap he was trying to disable, and we'll have the ranger fall into the pit he failed to see, and...and...
Come on, play nice. I wasn't at all serious about making the alchemist a walking stick of dynamite. But I was serious about brainstorming some ideas for "balancing" the obvious flavor of an alchemist's ability to make stuff all day long with the obvious need to keep him from being the most power-laden class ever.
A little help would be appreciated.
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Without this rule an Alchemist who had a day off coudl craft a day of his stuff and then use it the next day- in addition to that day's worth of stuff. A week off would give him 7 times as many 'spells' to cast.. at least until he ran out. Some balance needed to be made.
-S
WHAT? No, Just like how a wizard can't continually memorize new spells in addition to the old ones, an alchemist couldn't make new extracts and keep the old ones. They would override the old one created.
Sure and while we are at it we'll make telepathy have a chance of setting off all the spells in the wizard's head! OOOH I know, when a fighter takes a hit, if it does more than 10 points of damage it should totally take his arm off!Of course! And then we'll make the rogue accidentally set of the trap he was trying to disable, and we'll have the ranger fall into the pit he failed to see, and...and...
Come on, play nice. I wasn't at all serious about making the alchemist a walking stick of dynamite. But I was serious about brainstorming some ideas for "balancing" the obvious flavor of an alchemist's ability to make stuff all day long with the obvious need to keep him from being the most power-laden class ever.
A little help would be appreciated.
Fair enough thought you were being serious, my bad.
Hm...
"An extract, once created, remains potent for 1 day before becoming inert, so an alchemist must re-prepare his extracts every day."A wizard's prepared spells don't vanish from his head after 24 hours, and neither do the Cleric's, Druid's or the Witch's. Why not let the Alchemist keep their extracts for as long as they want?
I can see this being a problem with the 'infusion' discovery, but an easy way to fix this is to add something like this to the end of the infusion discovery: An extract becomes inert 24 hours after it leaves the alchemist’s possession.
Nobody seemed to notice, but back on Monday I pointed out a place where this creates a genuine problem and not just a minor mechanical inconsistency:
If a spell normally has a costly material component, that component is consumed during the creation of that particular extract.
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Nobody seemed to notice, but back on Monday I pointed out a place where this creates a genuine problem and not just a minor mechanical inconsistency:
If a spell normally has a costly material component, that component is consumed during the creation of that particular extract.
Nice catch!